Joy at the London Mayor Victory as Sausages live in Fear of Kate Hopkins.

For readers not in the UK (roughly half those reading this blog) this is a report,

Sadiq Khan became the first Muslim mayor of London in the early hours of Saturday after a bitter campaign marred by accusations of dog whistle racism on the part of his rival, the millionaire environmentalist Zac Goldsmith.

The Labour MP for Tooting in south London finished comfortably ahead of his Conservative rival whose camp accused Khan of “pandering to extremists” and tried to depict him as a Jeremy Corbyn loyalist who planned to use the capital for a “dangerous experiment”.

In his victory speech, Khan said he was “humbled” to be elected. In sharp remarks, he directly addressed Goldsmith’s campaign saying that he was proud “that London has today chosen hope over fear and unity over division”.

He added: “I hope that we will never be offered such a stark choice again. Fear does not make us safer, it only makes it weaker – and the politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city. I promise to always be a mayor for all Londoners, to work hard to make life better for every Londoner regardless of your background.

“I have a burning ambition for London. I want every single Londoner to get the opportunities that our city gave to me and my family.”

Referring to his late father, who came to London from Pakistan, Khan said he would have been proud “that the city he chose to call his own had now chosen one of his children to be mayor”.

Zac Goldsmith has lost, his reputation ruined, a political disgrace consigned to the history books. He had a choice. He could have capitalised on his reputation as a liberally minded, eco-friendly Tory, crossing partisan divides, love-bombing a city that has increasingly become a Labour heartland. Initial polls suggested he had a chance, even a significant lead. The cheerleaders for Tessa Jowell, the Blairite candidate in Labour’s selection race, wrongly suggested Sadiq Khan was unelectable.

Instead, Goldsmith waged a campaign soaked in racism, in one of the most ethnically diverse cities on Earth, shamelessly exploiting anti-Muslim prejudices in an effort to secure a shameful victory. Khan was a candidate who “repeatedly legitimised those with extremist views”, he wrote in the Mail. London was offered a campaign of fear, smear and bigotry. And London overwhelmingly told it where to go.

A more detailed analysis of the national results will follow, though it is clear that attempts to drive Labour down to the ground have not born fruit.

For the moment we note that critics of Jeremy Corbyn claim any successes as their own work, and any set backs as his.

The Provisional Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain, meeting on May 1, agreed to call for a vote for George Galloway (first preference) in the London mayoral election and Sadiq Khan (second preference).

We call for a first-preference vote for George Galloway in spite of his notorious alliances with the Iranian regime, with Ba’athists and other oppressors in the Middle East, and in spite of the political differences for which we have repeatedly criticised him.

We do so because the witch-hunt around allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ currently being conducted by the Labour right and the mass media is an attempt to smear any opposition to US policy in the Middle East as racist, and is part of a class struggle conducted by the capitalist class to recover full control of the Labour Party by its paid agents.

Sadiq Khan has come onside for capital in this witch-hunt; Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have collapsed in the face of it. In contrast, George Galloway has responded robustly and broadly correctly. In this context a first-preference vote for Galloway is a useful, if limited, protest against the witch-hunt.

5 Responses

Andrew, I appreciate that your fascination with ultra left exotica compels you to spice even your more mainstream progressive postings with the occasional sideswipe at your fellow enthusiasts but, if as you say. your entertaining blog is read by people outside of this country, you really should explain that when you refer to the ‘provisional central committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain’ that you mean an endlessly parasitic and miniscule Trotskyite sect of uncertain provenance rather than anything resembling what the rest of the world regards as a the Communist Party.

As I know them Nick, I give them the ironical courtesy of their own title.

It adds to the fun.

But as you say, they are not the CPB, or anything seriously related to the real Communist Party of Great Britain, as was – though Mark F is in fact a ex-member and so is Stan Keable , whose brother, as you are aware, is well respected in Communist circles.

I also do not think that they could be described as Trotksyists.

They could be described as a lot of things, complimentary, and perhaps less complimentary; even their non-‘CPGB’ contributors have baulked at this latest turn.